Report of the Nominating Committee, 1983

On behalf of the Nominating Committee, I am pleased to re­port the following results of the the 1983 elections.

President

Arthur S. Link, Princeton University 2,916

President-Elect

William H. McNeill, University of Chicago 2,008
Eugen Weber, University of California, Los Angeles 1,241

Vice-President, Professional Division

Mollie C. Davis, Queens College, North Carolina 1,229
Richard S. Kirkendall, Iowa State University 1,879

Divisional Committee Members

Professional
Paula Gillen, Institute for Historical Study 1,434
Bernard Semmel, SUNY, Stony Brook 1,567

Research
S. Barbara Kanner, Occidental College 1,418
K. C. Liu, University of California, Davis 1,566

Teaching (regular three-year term)
Gerald G. Eggert, Penn State University 1,662
Henry Feingold, Baruch College, CUNY 1,228

Teaching
Marjorie Wall Bingham, St. Louis Park Public Schools 1,436
Henry N. Drewry, Princeton University 1,400

Nominating Committee

Place 1
Lester K. Little, Smith College 1,440
Peter Stansky, Stanford University 1,528

Place 2
Arnita A. Jones, National Endowment for the Humanities 1,719
John Tedeschi, Newberry Library 1,250

Place 3
John L Gaddis, Ohio University 1,654
Stanley I. Kutler, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1,306

A total of 3.875 ballots was received by the November 1 deadline. However, due to delays in mailings from Richmond , a number of association members in California only received their ballots the day before the deadline. The chair of the Nominating Committee, in consultation with the executive offices but on his own responsibility, decided that the deadline should be extended by one week in order to protect the voting rights of members. An additional twelve ballots were re­ceived during this period and were counted in the total. As in the past there was a great variation in the number or abstentions recorded for various offices. About two dozen ballots were not punched in the appropriate way but marked with pen or pencil. These were counted separately. There were no write-ins, but there were several protest ballots recording opposition to the prin­ciple of election for the presidency.

An unexpected technical problem made it necessary to have all the ballots counted by hand. The cards provided as ballots were not accepted by the com­puter hardware either at the University of Pennsylvania Computer Center or at the University City Science Center. In both cases the cards were mangled rath­er than counted. The procedure of hand-counting took a few additional days so that the report of the results was made later than normally has been the case. The delay and expense involved were annoying, but the irony of IBM punch cards having been rendered technologically obsolete should not go unnoticed by historians (or by the next chair of this committee). The ballots and the records of the counting were sent back to the AHA office where they will remain, in accordance with the constitution, for a year.

The Nominating Committee extends its appreciation to all those who agreed to run for office, congratulates the new leaders of the organization and wishes them success in their undertakings over the next year. (Of the twenty people asked to stand for election this year, three declined to do so.)

The committee held its annual meet­ing on the ill-fated weekend of February 11-12 when the nation’s capital was paralyzed by a blizzard. One member never made it to the meeting, a second arrived late on the first day and a third showed during the last few hours of the committee’s deliberations. In all cases, heroic efforts were made by the commit­tee members to battle their way through the storm. Despite the depletion in our ranks, we continued our discussions making certain to keep in touch by telephone with the one stranded mem­ber and reopening the discussion of each and every office as the two late­comers arrived. These were not ideal conditions in which to work, but it was decided that any attempt to postpone our deliberations might lead to a further depletion of our forces, if the weather continued to perform badly. Moreover, we were faced with a publication deadline for the appearance of the election list in Perspectives. Those who were not present or arrived late fully concurred with the consultative proce­dures we adopted.

The call for nominations which ac­companied the 1982 ballot elicited about 200 names, several fewer than the previous year. But once again the com­mittee found itself faced by the formida­ble task of identifying these individuals and confirming their membership in the organization. Much of this mechani­cal work could be avoided if those nomi­nating candidates would furnish a brief career summary or even better an up-to-date curriculum vitae.

The committee members also provided additional names with accompanying biographical information which was ex­tremely useful.

Every attempt was made to choose the best-qualified candidates, while at the same time, care was taken to represent the varied constituencies of the associa­tion.

Before the committee took up the main business at hand it discussed a remark allegedly made by the executive director in the course of his illuminating briefing. It was the committee’s under­standing that the executive director made the statement that the bylaws did not exclude the nomination of more than two candidates for the office or president-elect, but it subsequently turned out that he was referring to the offices of vice-president and other elec­tive offices. However, in the meantime the committee did discuss the matter, the main argument being that a three­-way race would eliminate the need for a confrontation between two individuals, often long-time friends, and would miti­gate any feelings of embarrassment or chagrin on the part of the unsuccessful candidate. The committee reached the conclusion that it would welcome two or more candidates for the office of presi­dent-elect and recommends to the Council that this procedure be adopted for future elections.

In its substantive discussions on the nomination for president the committee decided to seek a Europeanist, after having selected a slate of non-Western and American specialists during the previous two years. We were delighted that both our first choices agreed to run.

In the course of our discussions yet another persistent problem surfaced: how to honor distinguished scholars who may not have the interest in public affairs, the administrative experience, or the record of service to the profes­sion that are recognized today as neces­sary prerequisites for the presidency of the AHA. The committee recommend­ed to the Council that it create a Distin­guished Scholarly Service Award to be given every year to two historians who in the opinion of the Nominating Committee have achieved the highest levels of distinction in historical research and writing.

Looking back over the reports of the Nominating Committee chairs of the past five years, I notice with some satis­faction that most of the serious problems concerning representation have been solved, though there may be a question about the balance of subject specialties on the Nominating Committee itself. The one recurrent concern of all members of the Nominating Committee is the decline in the pool of active members of the association who partici­pate in its committees, vote in its elec­tions and recommend nominations for its offices. These are problems which go beyond the capacity of this committee to solve. It is our hope that they can be addressed by the leadership of the asso­ciation over the coming years.